


Percy in Tartarus

by pjo-whore (May1974)



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: Basically, Canon Relationships, Dark Percy, Dark Percy Jackson, F/M, Gen, House of Hades rewrite, M/M, Not Canon Compliant - The House of Hades (Heroes of Olympus), Percy alone in Tartarus, Post-Tartarus (Percy Jackson), Tartarus, and maybe i will be adding a dash of conflict to percabeth, anyway, because i'm a slut for that, but Percy and Damasen will be bonding, but none are really spotlighted, but you didn't hear that from me, he falls alone, just a dash, mostly - Freeform, so i'm not tagging them all because, so stay tuned for that, so there's that, too - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-15
Updated: 2020-12-01
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:09:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25910371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/May1974/pseuds/pjo-whore
Summary: What if Percy had fallen into Tartarus alone?*A House of Hades rewrite, with more dark Percy
Relationships: Annabeth Chase/Percy Jackson, Damasen & Percy Jackson
Comments: 10
Kudos: 141





	1. A Very Hard Fall

**Author's Note:**

> I originally posted this on Wattpad, but I've decided to go through and edit it and cross-post it here. It will be mostly the same, with minor tweaks, but I would consider this as the final version. 
> 
> I don't consider this very mature content, beyond the profanity and higher count of injuries and monster fights, but if you feel like the rating should be changed or warnings should be added, feel free to comment down below and I'll update it!

**Chapter 1 | A Very Hard Fall**   
_(Annabeth)_

You know, I had seen some pretty strange things before. There was my first time at Camp Half-Blood, Dionysus and his wine, and a ton of other things that I couldn’t possibly sum-up in one list. However, one thing that I had never had the pleasure of seeing before was cars raining from the sky. I’m going to be honest – it wasn’t as fun as it sounded.

As the roof of the cavern collapsed, beams of sunlight shone through from above, obscuring my vision and blinding me. I caught the briefest glimpse of the Argo II hovering in the sky. It must have used its ballistae to blast a hole straight through the ground. Giant chunks of asphalt as big as garage doors tumbled down, along with six or seven Italian cars. One would have crushed the Athena Parthenos, but luckily the statue's glowing aura acted as a force field, and the car bounced off. Unfortunately, that car fell straight towards me. 

I launched myself to the side, accidentally twisting my bad foot. A wave of pain rushed through my body, almost making me pass out. My vision cut to TV static and I became light-headed. I was able to flip onto my back just in time to see a bright red Fiat 500 slam straight into Arachne’s silk trap, punching through the cavern floor and disappearing with the Chinese Spider-cuffs.

I wished I could say it was a shame.

As Arachne fell, she screamed like a freight train on collision course, but her wailing rapidly faded. It was like something out of a Bugs Bunny cartoon, but not nearly as funny. All around me, more chunks of debris slammed through the floor, riddling it with holes.

Thankfully, the Athena Parthenos remained undamaged, though the marble under its pedestal was a starburst of fractures. I was covered head to toe in cobwebs. I trailed the strands of leftover spider silk from my arms and legs like the strings of a marionette, but somehow, amazingly, none of the debris had hit me. I wanted to believe that the statue had protected me, but I suspected it might have been nothing but dumb luck.

The army of spiders had completely disappeared. Either they had fled back into the darkness, or they had fallen into the chasm. I hoped for the latter of the two. As daylight flooded the cavern, Arachne’s silk tapestries along the wall crumbled to dust. I could hardly bear to watch – especially when the tapestry depicting Percy and I together turned to nothing.

But none of it mattered the moment I heard Percy’s voice. “Annabeth!”

“Here!” I sobbed. “Over here!”

All the terror seemed to leave me in one massive yelp. As the Argo II descended, I spotted Percy leaning over the rail. Green eyes shining bright, black hair blowing in the wind, and his signature crooked smile. He looked like a god sent from Elysium. His smile was better than any tapestry I had ever seen.

The room kept shaking, and I managed to stand, albeit with difficulty. The floor at my feet seemed to be stable for the moment, which I counted as a blessing. My backpack was missing, along with Daedalus’s laptop. My celestial bronze knife, which I’d had since I was seven, was also gone – probably fallen into the pit. I almost wanted to cry at the loss, but I held back the tears. At least I was alive.

I edged a little closer to the gaping hole made by the Fiat 500, cautious about falling in. Jagged rock walls plunged into the darkness as far as I could see, creating a horror-scene appeal. A few small ledges jutted out here and there, but I saw nothing on them – just strands of spider silk dripping over the sides like Christmas tree tinsel.

Briefly, I wondered if Arachne had told the truth about the chasm. Had she really fallen all the way down to Tartarus? I tried to feel satisfied with the idea, but it made me slightly upset. Arachne had made some beautiful things and she had already suffered for eons, and now her last tapestries had crumbled. After all of that, falling into Tartarus seemed like too harsh of an ending for her. 

I was only dimly aware of the Argo II hovering to a stop about forty feet from the floor. It lowered a rope ladder, but I ignored it and stood in a daze, staring into the darkness. Then suddenly Percy was next to me, lacing his fingers with mine. 

He gently turned me away from the pit and wrapped his arms around me in a warm embrace. I buried my face in his chest and finally broke down in tears. It all hit me at once.

“It’s okay,” he murmured. “We're together.”

Percy didn't say ‘ _you're okay_ ’ or ‘ _we're alive_ ’. After all we had been through over the last year, he knew the most important thing was that we were together. I loved him for saying that.

Our friends gathered around us, and I couldn't help but suddenly understand what it felt like to be a circus spectacle. The circle they made almost seemed suffocating, though I knew they just wanted to help. Embarrassed by my breakdown, I wiped the tears away and tried to stand a little taller. Percy's embrace tightened. 

Nico di Angelo was there as well, but my thoughts were so fuzzy that this didn't seem to surprise me. It only seemed right that he would be with us. Piper's gaze searched me over for injuries and her eyes widened.

“Your leg!” Piper inhaled sharply, kneeling next to me and examining the bubble wrap cast. “Oh, Annabeth, what happened?”

At first, I tried to explain. But when I opened my mouth to speak, nothing came out. It was just a strangled peep. Tears threatened to fall. Trying again, I sought out my voice, putting on a false bravado act. Talking was difficult to begin with, but as I went along, my words came more easily. Percy didn't let go of my hand either, which also boosted my confidence. When I finally finished, my friends’ faces were slack with amazement. 

“Gods of Olympus,” Jason said, eyes wide. “You did that alone – with a broken ankle.”

“Well …” I admitted, “some of it with a broken ankle.”

Percy's lips split into a wide grin. “You made Arachne weave her own trap? I knew you were good, but Holy Hera – Annabeth, you did it. Generations of Athena kids tried and failed, but _you_ did it. You found the Athena Parthenos.” Everyone's gaze slid over to the statue. 

“What do we do with her?” Frank asked. “She's huge.”

“We'll have to take her with us to Greece,” I said. I glanced over at the Athena Parthenos again, sizing her up. I wasn't quite sure how we were going to manage. “The statue is powerful. Something about it will help us stop the giants.”

“The giants' bane stands gold and pale,” Hazel quoted. She tucked a strand of loose hair behind her ear and looked at me with those big golden eyes. “Won with pain from a woven jail.” Her expression changed, and it gained a hint of admiration. “It was Arachne's jail. Annabeth, you tricked her into weaving it.”

 _With a_ lot _of pain_ , I thought humorlessly.

Leo raised his hands in a funny manner, his tongue sticking out of the corner of his mouth in mock concentration. He made a finger picture frame around the Athena Parthenos, like he was taking measurements. “Well, it might take some rearranging, but I think we can fit her through the bay doors in the stable. If she sticks out at the end, I might have to wrap a flag around her feet or something.”

I shuddered at that image. I tried imagining the Athena Parthenos jutting out from our trireme with a sign across her pedestal that read: **WIDE LOAD**.

Then I thought about the other lines of the prophecy: _The twins snuff out the angel's breath, who holds the keys to endless death_.

“What about you guys?” I asked. “What happened with the giants?”

Percy was the one who told me about rescuing Nico, the surprise appearance of Bacchus, and the fight with the twin giants in the Colosseum. Nico didn't say much, or anything at all. The poor guy looked like he had been wandering through a wasteland for six weeks. Percy explained the information that Nico had found out about the Doors of Death, and that they had to be closed on both sides. Even with sunlight streaming in from above, Percy's news made the cavern seem dark again. 

"So, the mortal side is in Epirus." The gears in my brain started to turn and whirl. Unfortunately, it seemed that they were all burnt out from my time with Arachne, because I felt absolutely brain dead. "At least that's somewhere we can reach." 

Nico grimaced. "But the other side is the problem – Tartarus." 

The word seemed to eerily echo throughout the cavernous chamber. The pit behind us exhaled a cold blast of air, blowing strands of my hair wild, and I shivered slightly. I pushed up against Percy's side for extra warmth. I wasn't just shivering from the cold. That's when I knew with certainty – the chasm did go straight to the Underworld. 

Percy must have felt it, too, because he guided me a little further away from the edge, fingers tightly wrapped around my wrist. I held on even harder. My arms and legs trailed spider silk like a bridal train and I suddenly wished that I had my dagger to cut off all the stupid junk. I almost asked Percy to do the honors with Riptide, but before I had the chance, he started to voice his thoughts. "You know, Bacchus mentioned something about my voyage being harder than I expected. Not sure why he –" 

Suddenly, the chamber groaned, making the Athena Parthenos tilt to one side. Its head caught on one of Arachne's support cables, but the marble foundation underneath the pedestal was crumbling. 

For one horrible moment, I thought it was going to fall. My whole body froze and clenched-up. My mind was running a million miles a minute. Nausea swelled in my stomach. If that statue fell into the chasm, all my work would have been for nothing. My pain would count for nothing in the end – our entire quest would fail without the Athena Parthenos.

"Secure it!" I cried out desperately. 

Thankfully, all my friends understood almost immediately. "Zhang!" Leo yelled, already running towards him. "Get me to the helm, quick! The coach is up there alone." Frank transformed into a giant eagle, and the two of them soared towards the Argo II. 

Jason wrapped his arm around Piper and turned to face Percy. "I'll be back for you guys in a sec," he said. He summoned the wind and shot into the air. 

"This floor won't last!" Hazel warned. "The rest of us should get to the ladder." 

Plumes of dust and cobwebs blasted from the holes in the floor. The spider's silk support cables trembled like massive guitar strings and began to snap. I watched anxiously as Hazel lunged for the bottom of the rope ladder and gestured for Nico to follow, but he was in no condition to sprint. Nico could only limp. 

Somehow, Percy gripped my hand even tighter.

"It'll be fine," he muttered. 

I don’t know who he was trying to convince.

Tilting my head back, I looked up and saw grappling lines shoot from the Argo II and wrap around the statue; one lassoed Athena's neck like a noose. Leo was shouting orders from the helm as Jason and Frank flew frantically from line to line, trying to secure them. Nico had only just reached the ladder when a sharp pain shot up my bad leg, sudden and violent. Not expecting it, I gasped and stumbled a little, losing my balance.

“What is it?” Percy asked.

Everything was hazy. Confused, I tried to stagger towards the ladder, only to find that I could not. I was moving backwards, instead. Suddenly, my legs were swept out from underneath me, and I fell on my hands and knees. I could hear my head hit the ground, bouncing my vision. I saw stars.

“Her ankle!” Hazel shouted from the ladder. “Guys, quickly! Cut it! Cut it!”

My mind felt fuzzy from the pain. _Cut my ankle?_

Apparently, Percy didn’t know what Hazel meant, either. He said something to me, something along the lines of if I was okay. A high-pitched ringing in my ears blocked out his words. Then, an invisible force yanked me backwards and dragged me towards the pit with the force of an elephant. Percy’s expression morphed to one of horror. He lunged for me, barely managing to grab hold of my forearm.

Unfortunately, the momentum carried him along, as well.

"Help them!" Hazel screamed. 

I could see Nico hobbling in our direction as Hazel tried to disentangle her cavalry sword from the rope ladder. Our other friends were still focused on the statue, and Hazel’s cry was lost in the general shouting and the rumbling of the cavern. The bottom of my stomach dropped when I was yanked back another few feet.

I was sobbing at this point. I didn’t want to fight anymore. I had worked so hard to get so far, and now I was being pulled into Tartarus. I was being sucked into an unavoidable death.

It was too late, now that I realized what was happening; I was tangled in the spider silk. I just knew that I should have cut it away immediately. I had assumed that it was only loose lines, but with the entire floor covered in cobwebs, I hadn’t noticed that one of the strands was wrapped around my foot – and the other end went straight into the pit. It was attached to something heavy down in the darkness, something that was pulling me in.

“Annabeth!” Percy shouted. He struggled to stop me from being dragged towards the chasm. A sad light dawned in his eyes when he realized what was happening. “My sword …”

He turned a desperate look over to his pocket. But he could not reach Riptide without letting go of me. I didn’t believe that Percy would risk it – he wasn’t like that; he didn’t take risks when it put others at stake – and I screamed when I felt his hold let go. I slipped even further. With the speed of a god, Percy reached into his pocket and whipped out Riptide, yanking the cap off it quickly. He raised it high above his head and flew past me, landing at my feet. He swung with all he had; I heard the metal blade hiss as it cut through the air.

It hit the spider silk, slicing through it easily. With a snap I was suddenly let free.

Instant relief followed, but when I tried pulling myself up, I was whacked with another wave of pain. The breath was knocked out of me, and suddenly Percy was no longer behind me.

“Annabeth!”

I heard a distant scream from Hazel, yelling something about grabbing Percy. I rolled onto my back and scrambled back from the looming chasm. That’s when I spotted him. Percy was falling.

He scrambled for purchase on the crumbling marble floor. Riptide slipped from his hands and dropped into the looming black hole below. His eyes were wide as he lost hold and fell back further, crying out, and his hands became stained with red.

“Annabeth!”

I scrambled back even further as the floor cracked.

Percy disappeared over the edge.

My breath caught.

Nico ran past me, ignorant of the crumbling marble and danger.

As more of the floor fell away, I was given a front-row seat to the chasm. Percy was about partway into the pit and was dangling over the void. He had managed to grab a ledge almost fifteen feet below the top of the chasm, but that didn't seem to help in the slightest. He was holding on with only one hand, though he kept trying to get a hold to pull himself up.

 _No escape_. I could have sworn that a voice had echoed from the pit below, mocking me. Bile rose in my throat. _I go to Tartarus, and your loved one will come too._

I wasn't sure if I had actually heard Arachne's voice, or if it was all just in my mind. The pit shook violently, as if it were eagerly anticipating its next meal – its next victim. By now the only thing keeping Percy from falling was the ledge that he had managed to grab onto. But it was barely the size of a bookshelf, and his hands were noticeably slipping.

Nico leaned over the edge of the chasm, hopelessly thrusting out his hand out to help, but he was much too far away. He knew it, I knew it – and Percy knew it, too. 

Hazel was yelling for the others to help.

But even if they heard her over all the chaos, they would never make it in time.

It felt like my whole world was crashing down around me, slowly, as if the Fates were teasing me cruelly. I couldn't comprehend the fact that Percy was about to fall to his doom. I tried to make my way towards the pit, determined to at least try and save him, but when I came beside Nico, I realized that he was already too far down to be saved. I could feel the pull of the pit even from a few feet away.

My eyes stung with salty tears. "Percy," I yelled, not yet willing to accept the situation. This just couldn't be happening. "Percy! Grab my hand!" 

If it were not for Nico holding me back, I would have fallen into the pit, too. Nico's hold burned. He looked sickly and weak, but in the moment, he was hurting me. Percy's face was almost white with effort. I could see it in his eyes that he knew it was hopeless, that he had signed his death warrant by saving me. 

“Annabeth,” he said. His voice was wavering. Percy gasped when the ledge shifted ever so slightly, his fingers turning an unhealthy shade. He looked up at Nico, fifteen feet above. Something crossed his expression. “The other side, Nico! I’ll see you there. Understand?”

Nico's eyes widened. "But –" 

"Lead them there!" Percy shouted. "Promise me! Please!" 

Nico looked completely lost.

"I – I will," he stuttered.

Below Percy, somewhere from the endless void, a voice laughed in the darkness. Ice crawled up my spine. _A sacrifice. Such a beautiful sacrifice to wake the goddess._

Percy’s knuckles bulged with the effort of holding himself up, and his fingers started to slip. His face was gaunt, scraped and bloody, and his hair was dusted with cobwebs. But when he locked eyes with me – his deep green eyes – I thought that he had never looked more like a hero. He was a far cry from the boy who had stumbled into Camp Half-Blood years ago. “I promise I’ll come back.”

It finally clicked in my mind. I suddenly understood what was going to happen.

A one-way trip.

A very hard fall.

Percy looked at me and his eyes were dark. He was scared. He was really scared. And I couldn’t bring myself to watch. I looked away. My eyes were wet as I took a shuddering breath.

Then Nico and Hazel were screaming for help.

Percy had fallen.

I was suddenly being pulled away from the edge of the chasm. It happened just like that. It felt almost wrong in the way that it happened. The world should have fallen into darkness, the gods should have been howling in sorrow, and everything should just stop – because how could the world function when someone just died? When Percy just made an unfathomable sacrifice?

My entire life had just been ripped out from beneath my feet, and yet the fall was so anticlimactic that it felt wrong somehow. How was it fair? Who thought that this was fair?

Everything was hell.


	2. The Blame Is On Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Guilt gnaws at Annabeth, and she can't accept the truth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A short chapter, but I feel like Rick could have portrayed the crushing guilt the crew would have felt a little better. They would definitely spend some time directly after the fall trying to collect themselves. Also comment down below how often I should update! I have the basics written, but still need time to edit, so I'd love to hear feedback!

**Chapter 2 | The Blame Is On Me**   
_(Annabeth)_

My fault. Everything was my fault. 

Crushing guilt swelled within me. My stomach hurt.

If I hadn't been too busy almost dying, Percy would have made it to the ship safely, and I would have, too. All of us would have, along with the Athena Parthenos.

If it weren't for me, Percy wouldn’t have risked his life like the dumb, stupid, too sacrificial hero he was. Percy would be with me right now, joking around and exaggerating about the fact that he was happy to be with me again. Nobody on the ship would be dragging themselves across the deck, complaining about how it was all _their_ fault.

They were only trying to make me feel better, trying to reason with themselves that there was nothing they could have done, despite their abilities. They were trying to justify Percy's fall, and ultimate death, into Tartarus. It made something in me feel ugly.

But I knew the truth. The blame was all on me.

The rest of them knew damn well that the reason Percy fell to his death was only because of me, and Percy's willingness to sacrifice himself left and right for others. Of course, they weren't openly mad with me. Though, I did catch a couple of them throwing me some dirty looks following the incident. In the end, though, we should’ve all saw it coming. Percy was so blind with his loyalty, and it had caused him to unknowingly throw his life away for me.

To make matters worse, Leo had spent the night wrestling with a forty-foot-tall Athena.

Ever since we had brought the statue aboard, Leo had been near obsessed with figuring out how it worked. He insisted that it had primo powers, that there had to be a secret switch, or a pressure plate or something of the sorts.

But, the truth? It didn't have any cool features, unless you counted the fact that it just looked magical. Otherwise, it was purely symbolic in its magic.

The statue practically radiated power, so much so that any mortal, even without clear sight, would have been able to feel something off about it. I knew that it was important - in some way, somehow - but I wasn't sure how to use it. I didn't dare tell the others, though. They had all risked their lives to save this seemingly useless statue, and I wasn't about to tell them that I had no clue what to do with it.

But I had a strong feeling about it, an ominous message, from my mother.

She said that it was the key to mending the rift between the Greeks and Romans, and I had blindly believed her - because why wouldn't I?

Even through all the shit that the gods had put me and Percy through, I wanted to be able to at least trust my mother - one of the most respected goddesses among the Olympian council. She wasn't like Aphrodite, leading her kids on and purposefully meddling with them. She wasn't like Ares, being close to abusive, controlling, and intimidating. But sometimes I wished she was, just so that she could be a little more involved - even if it had to be in a negative way. And if she was, she just might have given me more than an ambiguous message with no explanation.

Of course, the Greeks would be happy to receive one of their prized possessions back, but would it really fix the almost centuries-long grudge? That was too easy.

And what about the modern-day demigods? Would they actually care about the old statue, something that hadn't been seen for generations? Other than a few exceptions in the Athena cabin, I doubted anyone even knew it existed.

I imagined the exchange would be a little awkward.

Like: _Here, we pillaged your land, killed your people, you waged war with us, and we completely changed your gods. But here you go. A statue. All is forgiven, right?_

Completely absurd.

But I wasn't ready to give up. Too much had been sacrificed for the statue already.

I pulled at my hair. My eyes felt wet. What was I going to do? I was stuck, with no plan, and the boy I loved was probably dead. And it was all because of me. For the first time in a very long time, I hadn't a clue what I was supposed to do.

After roughly half an hour of sitting in my cabin, back up against the door, rocking back and forth and just wishing for it to all be a nightmare, I came to a conclusion. I decided that I wasn't helping anyone by mourning. The rest of the Argo II crew had looked up to Percy to lead them, and that responsibility had now been passed onto me and Nico to help guide them. It was time to act my part.

All I had to do was get us to the mortal side of the Doors of Death in Eripus.

Somehow, inside of me, I knew that if I could only manage that, Percy would be waiting for us there. He would make it out. I ignored any lingering doubts about it, because of course Percy was going to be there - it was silly to believe he wouldn't be. If anyone was going to stick to a promise, it was Percy. We were going to meet him at the Doors of Death. 

<><><><>

I thought that sleep was the answer to feeling better. I was normally right about those kinds of things. I knew my body best, knew what I needed to do to get in better health. It just so happened that this time, the fates were laughing hysterically, because I was _way_ off the mark. I should have known that sleep meant there would be dreams - and not the good kind.

I opened my eyes to the interior of the Argo II, facing the Athena Parthenos.

The statue was wedged tight in the corridor, cramped in by the small wooden walls, and I had to climb over the top and wriggle under the statue's limbs, searching for levers and buttons.

Subconsciously, I knew that there wasn't anything to find, but I was still disappointed when I came up empty-handed. My Daedalus laptop was open and laying on the floor, the screen bright in the dark corridor. I reached for the laptop, but it winked out of existence and the room spun.

_I am the key to defeating Gaea._

The voice rang in my ear, and I looked for who had spoken. But there was no one.

It was only me in the corridor.

_I can heal the rift between Greek and Roman demigods._

Ice crawled up my spine and I turned to face the statue. Suddenly, it was no longer wedged in the corridor of the Argo II but standing tall and looming over me in a dark torch-lit room. The marble face was taunting, reminiscent of my mother’s cold side. I shivered as the torches along the walls flickered, flames waning dangerously. Something told me I didn’t want the light to wink out.

But I didn’t understand.

What was the message?

The ship suddenly careened to one side, taking evasive maneuvers. My instinct was to rush to the helm, but something held me back. Jason, Piper, and Frank were all on duty with Hazel. They could handle whatever was going on.

Secretly, I thought that Hazel didn't know where she was going. However, I hoped that she was right about the long detour north. To be honest, it was Hecate that I didn't trust. There wasn't any reason why such a creepy goddess would suddenly decide to be helpful, especially since she had chosen to fight _against_ the gods before. Of course, I didn't really trust magic in general. But I was a demigod, and I had grown used to its wacky ways.

A cold breeze flitted through the wooden corridor, and the Athena Parthenos swayed on its pedestal, and my breath caught as it fell straight for me. The torches fell dark.

Everything was black.

Dread swept through me, the bottom of my stomach dropping, and suddenly I shot up. I was on my feet and running for my life among trees. Nothing new. My surroundings appeared familiar, and I finally recognized it as the forest in Camp Half-Blood.

I hadn't a clue what was chasing me, but I sensed it coming closer - it was closing in on me fast, crashing, something large, and dark, and full of hate. I cleared a fallen tree and stumbled on the landing, getting scratched and hit by the fallen tree's branches. I knocked over a few weak bushes in my haste, flattening them, and tripped through the thorny vines, the vegetation wrapping around my ankles and trying to pull me down.

Fear consumed me, and suddenly it was like I was a little kid again, running away from home.

In front of me, where I could see a clearing, I spotted a figure looming in the distance. As I got closer, it morphed into a woman in robes of dry swirling earth, her face covered in a veil of dust. She reached out a dry, wrinkled hand.

_Where are you going, little hero?_ Gaea's voice was sickly-sweet. _Stay, and meet my favourite son._

I darted to the left, but her laughter followed me.

I ran straight into a dead-end, a thick wall of rock blocking my path. I sobbed and turned in desperation, but the thing pursuing me now stood in my path - a colossal being wrapped in shadows, its shape vaguely humanoid, its head almost scraping the ceiling that appeared twenty feet above. I pulled out my dagger - which had magically appeared at my waist - and readied myself to fight. I took a stab at the giant, but the darkness consumed my blade, leaving me weaponless and vulnerable. I reached for something else, for anything to help from the monster bearing down on me, but everything was just barely out of reach, pulling away when I got close.

My breaths fell short, my lungs suddenly being constricted.

_My son will make demigod blood fall soon_ , Gaea rumbled from the depths of the grey prison that trapped me. _He is the void that consumes all magic, the cold that consumes all fire, the silence that consumes all speech._

I wanted to shout.

But my voice was silent.

So, I used my feet. I dashed to the right, ducking under the shadowy giant's grasping hands, and jumped straight through the grey wall like it was made of nothing but light. I burst into a clearing on the edge the forest.

I suddenly found myself in front of the Camp Half-Blood pavilion, staring out at the entirety of the camp. The camp was in ruins. The cabins were charred husks. Burned fields smoldered in the moonlight. The dining pavilion behind me had collapsed into a pile of white rubble, and the Big House was on fire, its windows glowing like demon eyes.

I kept on running, sure that the shadow giant was still behind me.

As I was running, I had to weave around the limp bodies of Greek and Roman demigods on the ground, tears threatening to fall as I recognized some familiar faces. Some of the corpses were covered in black soot from the flames, while some were still on fire. The smell of burning flesh reached my nose, and I gagged. Others were missing limbs, huge wounds and gashes leaked pints upon pints of blood, the flies soaking it all up. My first instinct was to check if any were still alive. I wanted to help them.

But I was running out of time.

I booked it towards the only few living people that I saw - a group of Romans standing at the volleyball pit. Two centurions leaned casually on their javelins, chatting with a tall skinny blond guy in a purple toga. I stumbled.

It was that freak Octavian, the augur from Camp Jupiter who was always screaming for war.

Octavian turned to face me, but he seemed to be in a trance. His features were slack, his eyes closed. When he spoke, it was in the voice of Gaea. " _This cannot be prevented. The Romans move east from New York. They advance on your camp, and nothing can slow them down_."

I was tempted to punch Octavian square in the face. Instead, I kept running. I climbed up Half-Blood Hill in my haste. At the summit, lightning had splintered the giant pine tree, Thalia's tree. I faltered to a stop. The back of the hill was shorn away. Beyond it, the entire world was gone. I saw nothing but clouds far below - a rolling silver carpet under the dark sky.

A sharp voice said, "Well?"

I flinched.

At the base of the shattered pine tree, a man knelt at a cave entrance that had cracked open between the tree's roots.

He turned and I sucked in a sharp breath. His eyes were green. They were a burning green. The colour looked all wrong. “What do you have to say?” He sounded bitter. His words cut me deep and I felt like I had committed a sin, like I deserved a life in the fields of punishment.

“I was falling. And you looked the other way.”

When he rose, I almost stumbled off the edge of the world. He towered over me, cloaked in leather. His exposed skin was dark and scarred. Blood and dirt stained his clothes.

“I was falling.”

Something crossed his features – pure hatred – and I wasn’t sure that I had even, quite literally, witnessed an actual emotion cross someone’s face so profoundly.

“And you looked the other way.”

It was terrifying to be under his cold gaze. His eyes were acid.

Then my worldview shifted. Suddenly I was facing the looming edge. I stared out at the dark chasm, frozen in fear. Something placed pressure on my back, slowly edging me towards the dark. “Annabeth, I’m falling!” The voices cried. “Annabeth help me! Please don’t look away!”

I screamed when I finally went over the edge.

I came-to, gasping for breath. I shot up in my bunk, coated in sweat and I clutched at my chest. My heart felt like it was beating a million miles a minute.

Then there was a knock at my door.

“Annabeth? Are you okay? I heard you screaming.” It was Hazel.

Piper spoke up next to her. “We want to help – can we come in? Do you want to talk?”

I took a shaky breath and sat for a moment. It was about time I spoke to someone.


	3. Alone and Miserable

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Percy faces his first obstacles in Tartarus and realizes just how hopeless his situation is. Some building bitterness arises.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for the long wait for chapter three! My lazy ass was only able to get through a few hundred words at a time (this chapter is roughly four-thousand words), and I kept switching to other WIPs and other fics to read, so ... kind of got distracted, my bad! Hopefully I'll have another chapter up soon!

**Chapter 3 | Alone and Miserable**   
_(Percy)_

The shock of what was happening hit me like a sudden bucket of ice. The weight of the situation was too real for me. I could die. I was always about to die – and I could joke about it – but this time it was real and scary and certain. I could die and never see any of my family or friends again.

It was fucking terrifying.

It felt like I was stuck in some sort of demented horror movie.

I kept thinking that it was all a bad dream. I was convinced that any moment I was going to wake up in my bunker on the Argo II and find Annabeth beside me in bed. And that we had flown out of the chasm on the Argo II, and that we were heading to the mortal side of the Doors of Death. Everything was on track – not this twisted version of a fairy-tale.

But I knew the truth.

My eyes were shut. I knew that if I opened them, I wouldn’t be able to see anything at all, because it was all swallowed in darkness. My surroundings were black. In a way it was comforting. Somehow not being able to see what was really out there made it easier.

Before I fell, I made a promise to Nico to meet on the other side of the Doors of Death. He promised the same in turn. That was, assuming I could even reach the side in Tartarus.

A dark, heavy feeling swelled in me; dread. It filled my bones and ran throughout every inch of my being. I was alone and lost and falling. It was all hopeless now. This was the end of the line – the very demise that monsters faced when they were slain.

Where had it all gone wrong?

Annabeth and I had been reunited after months apart. The gods had played us like pawns. We were forced to go on another quest to save the world – yet _again_ , might I add – and even then, it wasn’t enough for the Fates. Annabeth received a solo quest, risking her life for a stupid statue of Athena, a goddess with a stick up her ass. All that completed, and with our goal clear in sight, the gods were cruel enough to separate us again.

I had saved Annabeth from the fate of a monster; however, by doing so, I had sentenced myself to the Greek pit of hell.

I had sacrificed myself for her.

The notion wasn’t new; the fact that I didn’t survive was.

And she had just turned away.

I was falling and she looked away from me.

The dread settled.

<><><><>

Time wasn’t linear anymore. I lost track of how long I had been falling.

Hours? A day?

It felt like an eternity.

My arms were burning from the wind ripping into my skin. It stung. I held myself in a fetal position, hugging my knees to my chest as I dropped.

Maybe I would fall faster. Maybe I could end this faster.

The wind whistled in my ears and the air began to grow hotter and damper, as if I were plummeting into the throat of a massive dragon. It was so dark in the chasm that I couldn’t even see my hand in front of my face. It felt like spiderwebs covered my arms and legs. Tiny spiders crawled up and down my skin. I shivered at the phantom feeling, scratching at the nonexistent bugs until a sharp stinging sensation bit into my skin. My nails drew blood.

This was Arachne’s doing. The stupid cursed monster. Despite having been trapped in her own webbing by Annabeth, smashed by a car, and then plunged into Tartarus – she had still gotten her revenge.

Of course, she had wanted to snag the daughter of Athena.

But in the end, she still dragged a demigod down with her. In the long run, it didn’t matter.

It was all my fault. I had been stupid about everything.

We could have easily cut off the loose strings of silk when we found Annabeth. We could have avoided everything. I should have seen the trap. In fact, I should have insisted on bringing Annabeth aboard the ship before we decided to catch-up with each other, right from the get-go. The rescue had been going too well. I should have expected something to go wrong. After all, when was anything ever easy?

I couldn’t even imagine what my destination would be like. All those monsters, enemies upon enemies, all who were out for my head at the bottom of the pit. On the bright side, assuming there was a bottom, I guess I didn’t have anything to worry about.

I didn’t have to pass high school physics to know that I would be flattened on impact.

Splat. Bye, bye, Percy.

Monsters would be the least of my worries if that happened.

I dug my fingers into my knees to try and distract myself. It hurt. My eyes felt wet and stung from the biting wind. I didn’t like to be stuck with my thoughts like this. I didn’t want to be left to ponder my inevitable death – what awaited me at the bottom of the pit.

All I wanted was a peaceful death – you know, without pain. Not too much to ask. It wasn’t like I was asking for a golden coffin at my funeral.

To be sent to the hell reserved especially for the monsters I killed all my life was cliché.

Even the gods wouldn’t – couldn’t have – devised a fate so twisted.

But Gaea wasn’t like the other gods. The Earth Mother was older and more vicious. She was more bloodthirsty. I could imagine her laughing as I fell into the depths of Tartarus. Her voice was ingrained in my mind from when I forced her to play her hand against Phineas in Oregon, giving him a painful death by lethal Gorgon blood.

I bit my lower lips and hurt myself, unable to forget it.

The voice turned into a screech.

It felt like somebody had taken a dagger and stabbed it right through my brain.

My whole body tensed and froze, then fell numb, in a never-ending cycle. Fleeting thoughts swarmed my head. Multiple last-minute plans to save myself were dead ends.

I wasn’t stupid. My chances of survival were slim. I needed help.

Usually I could rely on someone, but now I was alone.

And falling.

To make matters worse, there was no way to reverse or even slow my fall. My mind blanked. I didn’t have the power to fly – not like Jason, who could control the wind; or even Frank, who could turn into a winged animal. If I reached the bottom of the chasm without anything to soften my fall, I wouldn’t have much to look forward to past that.

I needed a different tactic.

I tried to rid myself of the morbid image I’d conjured in my head.

I was desperate to the point where I was seriously starting to wonder if I could fashion a parachute out of my shirt, when something about my surroundings changed.

The darkness took on a grey-red tinge. With only mild relief, I realized that I could see my hands again in the faint lighting. The whistling in my ears turned into more of a deafening roar. Pressure built-up in my ears. The air became intolerably hot, permeated with a smell like rotten eggs.

Suddenly, the chute I had been falling through opened into a vast cavern. Maybe half a mile below, I could see the bottom. For a moment, I was too stunned to think properly.

The entire island of Manhattan could have fit inside the cavern – and I couldn’t even see its full extent. Red clouds hung in the air like vaporized blood. The landscape, at least what I could see of it, was rocky black plains, punctuated by jagged mountains and fiery chasms. To my left, the ground dropped off in a series of cliffs, like colossal steps leading deeper into the abyss.

The overwhelming stench of sulfur made it hard to concentrate. I focused on the decidedly most important thing – my destination.

Otherwise known as my death.

My eyes strained as I squinted down below. Something coursed through me – relief, eagerness, hope, pure unfiltered _something_ – when I saw a truly beautiful sight.

A ribbon of glittering black liquid.

A river.

A godsend.

At first, my mind didn’t make the connection. Just seeing water was enough for my cracked lips to spread into a wide smile. But then came the plan.

A river meant that there was viable water. It didn’t look like the water in my father’s domain, and probably wasn’t the same. It more closely resembled the Underworld’s nasty rivers. But it could just possibly save my life. My one shot at survival in Tartarus.

My skin tingled and burned. I was beginning to breathe hard. My stomach felt hollow. Through the dim red light, I could barely make out the current in the river, or the banks it flowed past. But I understood what I had to do if I wanted to live. My fingers hurt from clenching them into fists so hard. Briefly, an image of jumping off the St. Louis Arch flashed through my mind.

I could control water, assuming that was water below me, of course.

My entire plan kind of counted on that.

I might be able to cushion my fall with the water, saving myself injuries. Of course, I knew the terrible stories about the rivers of the Underworld. I’d had personal experience with them, too. They could take away your memories or burn your body and soul to ashes.

Fun.

The river hurtled towards me. A bit frantic, I reached out for the familiar tug in my gut. I needed to make the water rise, to soften, because I was not going to rely on my son of Poseidon heritage when it came down to it. Not in Tartarus.

But even as I tried to bend the water to my will, nothing happened.

Panic hit me.

My breath fell short.

I clenched my teeth and tried harder.

Nothing.

When I reached out to the water, there was nothing there. An ache developed in my head. The ache turned to sharp needles the harder I strained. There was nothing.

The water didn’t move.

I was internally screaming.

This was it.

I was going to die.

I hit the water with a horrible sound and suddenly everything went blank. I lost my breath again. The cold seeped into my bones. Almost too effortlessly, I sunk through the current. Despite the sound of an impact, there was no resistance. The river eagerly accepted my body and dragged me down.

Normally, I was immune to water temperature. I was a son of Poseidon. Water was supposed to be my greatest advantage.

My limbs turned rigid.

I was pulled down into the currents and sunk into the riverbed. Strange wailing sounds filled my ears; millions of heartbroken voices, as if the river were made of distilled sadness. The voices were worse than the cold. They weighed me down. I was running out of breath, which was wrong; I could breathe underwater. Something was wrong with this water. It was one of the bad rivers.

I had to get out.

Fueled by panic, I started to thrash, kicking towards the surface.

 _What’s the point of struggling?_ They told me. The voices filled me, drowned out my thoughts and made me feel numb. _You’re dead anyway. You’ll never get out. You’ll never leave The Pit._

I started to feel sluggish. They were right. There was no point.

I wasn’t going to get anywhere with my struggles. I could sink to the bottom and drown – let the river carry my body away. That would be easier. I wouldn’t have problems anymore. I would be done. I could just close my eyes and let go. It would be so easy, and so painless.

My mind screamed.

One voice – the one of self-preservation – rose above the others.

 _Get out!_ It screamed. _You must get out! You need to finish the prophecy!_

I moaned. My words were swallowed by the river, my lungs filling with the bad water, and I choked. My eyes were shocked open. The voices continued to moan.

I knew I had to get out, but there were so many reasons not to.

The voices told me that I was alone. The voices told me that I could let go – that it was okay. Death was coming. Death was inevitable.

And the voices were right.

But I could imagine the faces of my family if I never got back. They would be disappointed. How could the Hero of Olympus do this to them? I promised to meet them on the other side. I promised to close the Doors of Death for them. I had made a sacrifice, and now I needed to follow through with my commitment, no matter the consequences that followed.

How much was I worth if I couldn’t even make my sacrifice count for something? How much of a hero was I really?

My own voices begged to join the river.

I couldn’t see anything in the murky waters. I thought I was hallucinating – white forms drifted past in my peripheral vision. Ghostly hands grabbed at me, the phantom feeling of being pulled down the river by desperate yanks shaking my body.

My inner voice screamed. _Get out!_

I kicked upwards, fighting against the voices, and finally broke the surface.

I gasped, choking on the black water, gratefully for the fresh air – no matter how sulfurous. The water swirled around me, churning in an ugly current.

The water didn’t just feel wrong to be in, but it felt poisonous. It was toxic. It burned as I splashed, tingling fire shooting up my nerves. My body was trying to repel the water away from my skin, the pain in me growing the more the water soaked me through. It was killing me.

The river wasn’t rejuvenating me like it would have topside.

The voices crept back on me. My friends and family were pushed to the dark recess of my mind. Grey eyes turned away from me, pulled away when I reached out. No one was going to help me.

Only one thing could help me.

So, I reached out to the water.

The sea didn’t like to be controlled. It wanted to flow and bash and go as it pleased; it was not a force to be tamed. Maybe the rivers of the Underworld were their own force. Maybe they worked differently. If I couldn’t bend it to my will, I would have to bend to its will.

Almost immediately, the water reacted, and a foreign energy flooded my body.

It wasn’t normal. It was bad energy. The water didn’t just respond to me – it wanted to overtake me, it wanted to drown me. It wanted me to become one with it.

I struggled to keep my head above water.

The river took hold of me. The river was stronger than me. The voices got louder.

 _Land_ , I thought weakly. _Go sideways_.

Although I couldn’t make-out my surroundings, I knew that this was a thinner strip of the river. The water told me, allowed me to feel everything it felt as I bent to its will. As I drowned and became just one of the voices of the river. I could sense my waves pushing against a shore. I could feel the wails of my sister and brother voices, crying to make it to shore.

 _Life is despair_ , the voices said. _Everything is pointless, and then you die._

“Pointless,” I murmured back.

My teeth chattered from the cold.

The river had revealed itself to me, nothing held back – it was the River Cocytus, the River of Lamentation. It was made of pure misery. I felt as sure of it in my bones as I knew I was drowning, the way I always knew things about water.

But this was just another cosmic joke for Gaea to laugh at: the son of Poseidon drowning. My lips twitched and my lungs demanded air. My lungs felt like they were going to collapse.

The voices were consuming me. The pressure was unbearable.

I was here not by choice. I was being thrown around. I was being teased, drowned, left.

Bitterness built inside me.

 _Not going to happen, you hag_ , I thought.

I couldn’t feel half my body, but I tapped into the river – into the bad water, bad energy – and hung on with an iron grip. I hit something sharp in the vicious current, causing hot white pain to erupt along my right arm. It dulled to a low sting. The voices shrieked but I ignored the wailing. I focused on getting to shore. I was struggling to swim.

I used all my strength to reach just the riverbank.

My feet dug into the sandy bottom, my toe stubbing against rock. I would have cursed, but I kind of needed oxygen to do that. My hands clawed for purchase against the slope going upwards, my nails stinging as sharp stones stabbed them, unforgiving.

I used the solid surface to push my way up, hands hurting like hell, just as my lungs decided that they couldn’t handle it anymore. I hauled myself ashore, shivering and gasping, and collapsed on the dark sand. Little pinpricks of pain resonated through my body. I felt like one giant throbbing bruise.

All I wanted to do was close my, go to sleep, and never wake up.

But I was still alive. Gaea could suck it.

My chest felt lighter, and I pushed myself up, breathless.

“I made it!” I yelled, as loud as I could. My voice was raspy, and it hurt my throat. I choked on the sulfurous air, practically being assaulted by the scent and musk. Still. “Fuck you, asshole! I made it! Beat that, Gaea! Beat … beat that …”

There was no one listening.

All around me was barren and I was alone. I shivered violently when a strong wind blew past me, and I could have sworn a voice was carried on the breeze, whispering to me.

A breeze in a closed cavern.

At my feet, the River Cocytus roared past, a flood of liquid wretchedness. The sulfurous air not only hurt my nose, but it made my lungs sting and burned my skin. When I looked myself over, I was greeted with a mosaic of injuries; there was a harsh gash across my upper-right arm and an angry rash that was starting to form over my skin. The gash was a bright firetruck red, and now that I was out of the water, it was bleeding profusely.

I tried to sit-up more and gasped in pain.

The beach wasn’t sand, apparently. Of course, it wasn’t.

I was sitting on a field of jagged black-glass chips, some of which were now embedded in my palms. My fingers looked purple, and underneath my nails there were bits of blood from my earlier attempt to claw my way out of the river.

So, the air was acid.

The water was misery.

The ground was broken glass.

Everything in Tartarus was designed to hurt and kill.

I took a rattling breath and wondered if the voices in the Cocytus were right – that maybe fighting for survival was pointless. The odds were stacked against me. At this rate, I would be dead within the hour, or less. Especially if I didn’t stop my arm from bleeding-out.

Not quite sure where to start, I decided to take stock.

I didn’t currently have any life-threatening injuries besides the cut on my arm. It looked like a river of blood was trickling from my skin, and the flesh around the cut was inflamed and yellow. Then there was also the bruises and angry rash. My fingers also looked like they had tried to win a catfight but lost.

My minimal first-aid training from camp kicked in.

Even though I knew I couldn’t do much for the bruises and scrapes, I wasn’t just going to let myself bleed-out. That would be one of the dumbest ways to die in Tartarus, with so many other forces at work trying to kill me.

I pulled off my soaked shirt and ringed it dry, then ripped strips off the bottom to use. I tied them tightly around my upper arm to stop the bleeding, wincing the entire time. It hurt with the cotton material rubbing up against the blisters that had started to form, digging into raw tissue, but I just grit my teeth and weathered through. I doubted my impromptu bandage would hold for long. The strips of my shirt were stained with misery water, which I doubted was a very effective antiseptic. My shirt was thin, too, so it was bound to bleed-through despite my efforts, but it was better than nothing.

Considering I had no other materials, I needed to be conservative to save bits of my shirt for possible future wounds. I tied what was left of my shirt around my forehead as a bandana.

Ignoring the sound of wailing voices trying to lure me back into the River Cocytus, I looked at what other resources I had on hand.

I didn’t have my backpack. I had left it on the Argo II before rushing to meet Annabeth in the collapsed parking-lot. The food I had been carrying was also gone, given to Annabeth when I realized how hungry she was from her solo quest. My beaded necklace was gone, too – the one that I’d had since the very beginning of camp.

The realization came as a shock. My fingers tried to grab at what was supposed to be sitting around neck but came up empty. They grasped at nothing. It didn’t click right away, so I sat there for a couple more seconds before it sunk in.

So, I had no food and no clean water, and basically no supplies at all.

Literally the worst time and place to be unprepared, and yet, here I was.

The gears in mu brain worked furiously.

I realized it wasn’t completely true – I wasn’t without nothing.

There was water in the River Cocytus, and though I seriously doubted that I would want willingly drink misery water, it was still an option. I also still had my trusty sword, Riptide. The familiar weight of the pen had returned while I was falling through the dark.

And I also had myself.

I wasn’t dead yet. If I was able-bodied, I could continue to move forward.

Not quite the promising start I had hoped for, but it was something.

I looked over the terrain surrounding me. I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to be looking for. I didn’t even know which direction to start in.

Where the hell were the Doors of Death, anyway? Did Tartarus give out little pamphlets with useless maps? Either way, I needed to find a way out, and fast. I was shivering. A violent shudder shook my body despite the obvious heat radiating from the whole Pit.

I needed to keep moving, or else I’d get hypothermia.

I grit my teeth in preparation and got to my feet. I flinched as sharp needles and pinpricks assaulted my hands and knees. My worn-out blue jeans weren’t as thick as they used to be. As I stood on unsteady feet, grateful for the rubber soles of my sneakers, I wiped my sweaty palms on my jeans.

I watched it leave dark stain, smeared.

Guess it wasn’t sweat.

Above me, I saw no signs of the shoot that I had fallen through. I couldn’t even make out the cavern roof – just blood coloured clouds floating in the hazy grey air. It was like staring through a thin mix of tomato soup and cement. All around me, the black glass stretched inland about fifty yards, then dropped off the edge of a cliff. From where I stood, I couldn’t see below what was below, but the edge flickered with an intense red light. Almost as if illuminated by huge fires.

A faint memory tugged at the back of my mind. Something about Tartarus and fire.

I stumbled through the jagged terrain towards the cliff, but then spotted something out of place.

Maybe a hundred feet away, a familiar looking baby-blue Italian car had crashed headfirst into the sharp glass shards that littered the bank of the river.

It looked just like the Fiat that had been in the parking lot before the Argo II had blown a hole straight through it, courtesy of the plan that Leo had decided on within five seconds without telling us. Annabeth had told us in detail about how it smashed into Arachne, sending her to her demise.

I wanted to be wrong.

I wanted to think that maybe I was wrong about it being the same car, or that maybe it was just coincidental, you know?

But how many Italian sports cars could there be in Tartarus?

Part of me didn’t want to get anywhere near the cursed car – at least, not with knowing what I could potentially be walking towards. But I needed to find out. I wanted to see it with my own eyes, to confirm that she was dead and there was one less monster out for my blood.

I pulled out Riptide and moved toward the wreckage. I flinched when I got closer, not surprised at the damage. One of the car’s tires had popped off and was floating in a backwater eddy of the Cocytus. The Fiat’s windows had shattered, sending bright glass like frosting across the dark bench. The entire car appeared to be smashed from the impact. Under the crushed hood lay the tattered glistening remains of a giant silk cocoon – the trap Annabeth had tricked Arachne into weaving.

It was unmistakably empty.

Slash marks in the sand made a trail downriver, as if something heavy and with multiple legs had scuttled into the darkness.

Something nasty crawled up my spine and I had to supress the urge to throw-up.

She had deserved to die.

She had hurt Annabeth – her grey eyes, turning away.

I tasted something sour.

She should have died, just like I should have.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The update you really don't deserve, because you have all left lovely comments, but I'm a flimsy writer who changes their writing style on the flip of a dime. I apologize!
> 
> Also, because I have a responsibilities pertaining to COVID-19 at work (a grocery store), I've left tips about how to protect yourself and family!

Hello! 

This is probably NOT what you wanted to see when it showed an update, and I apologize for that. However, I'm unhappy with the story, and have lately developed a distaste of first-person point of view writing. I've decided to go back and rewrite the first few posted chapters so that they are written in third-person. 

Don't worry, this story is "finished" and has a complete plot, just ... now I must not only edit the rough draft, but also change everything from first-person to third-person. 

Yay ...

(I'm quietly crying on the inside). 

* * *

ALSO, please stay safe during this pandemic!

Wear a proper mask, over your nose AND mouth (face shields DON'T work! They are NOT effective!) Remember to dispose of your mask after one use, or after it is soiled; NEVER reuse a disposable mask! If you use a reusable mask, make sure to wash it after each use and leave it out to dry FULLY! (Reusable masks SHOULD have three layers; the outside layer, which should be WATER RESISTANT, the inner layer which should be WATER ABSORBENT, and the middle layer, which acts as a FILTER). Try not to touch your mask to avoid contamination, and only ever touch the loops that go around your ears.

Always social distance, even when wearing a mask!

Disposable medical masks are recommended for older folks (60+), or if you are interacting with older people. 

Sanitize your hands after interacting with often-touched surfaces, or any pubic surface! NEVER touch your mask, eyes, nose, or mouth after touching someone else, something else, or another surface (this is how you can contract the virus! The virus can live on foreign surfaces after an individual who has COVID-19 has come in contact with it). 

Individually, these measures do not provide the desired level of protection, but together they can be affective against the Coronavirus.

I wish you all well and good health! 

* * *

Some websites for further information on COVID-19: 

_If any of the links don't work, please comment down below!_

  * [World Health Organization, Confirmed Cases of COVID-19 Worldwide](https://covid19.who.int/)
  * [World Health Organization, Mythbusters for COVID-19](https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/advice-for-public/myth-busters)
  * [World Health Organization, Advice for the Public on Masks](https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/advice-for-public/when-and-how-to-use-masks)




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